MissouriMisery wrote:Hello! I have a couple of questions about realistic expectations for my need-based aid.

I have been working for 6 years since undergrad making about 30k per year, almost done paying off UG debt and my cheap car. I have about 5K in the bank. My parents both make decent money (combined just over 6 figures). They won't be contributing any money. I have no other assets Approximately how much need-based aid should I be expecting?

Also, are need-based grants reassessed each year or all at once? I am getting married in the middle of 1L year and am concerned that might throw things off. My spouse will have considerably more assets than I.

Thanks in advance for your responses

To answer your qualitative questions: actual parental contribution is irrelevant, it's potential that counts. Need based grants are reassessed each year (that way those of us with firm aspirations aren't living on $40k and still getting the same grants as the public interest fellows living on $4k).

Also, if you've been out of school for that long, your parent contributions are going to be reduced according to some percentage (probably a large percentage). See here for details, but if you're 28 when you start, parent contribution is dropped by 75% for the first year (and eliminated thereafter), and if you're 29 or older when you start, there's no parent contribution at all.

If I had to guess, I'd guess that, by yourself, you'd be looking at pretty near max aid. That still means a lot in loans, because the base loans are high (over 40K), but you're not paying sticker. That's just a guess from what you describe, though. And I have no idea how getting married is involved, but HLS's SFS pages (like the one linked above) will tell you more.

EDIT: Also see acrossthelake's suggestion below.

Last edited by tomwatts on Tue Feb 04, 2014 12:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

Harvard financial aid is really one of those areas where I think a TLS students answering questions thread is one of your weaker sources of information and where you're better off just contacting financial aid. People tend to be fairly tight-lipped about their financial aid packages; though I know very detailed sets of grades & job outcomes for my peers, I know absolutely nothing about anybody's financial aid packages. I'm not even aware of which friends receive aid. The only insight you might gain here is to ask for anecdotes ("has anyone ever done X, what happened"), but questions like how do they take X into account are best just asked directly.

acrossthelake wrote:Harvard financial aid is really one of those areas where I think a TLS students answering questions thread is one of your weaker sources of information and where you're better off just contacting financial aid. People tend to be fairly tight-lipped about their financial aid packages; though I know very detailed sets of grades & job outcomes for my peers, I know absolutely nothing about anybody's financial aid packages. I'm not even aware of which friends receive aid. The only insight you might gain here is to ask for anecdotes ("has anyone ever done X, what happened"), but questions like how do they take X into account are best just asked directly.

acrossthelake wrote:Harvard financial aid is really one of those areas where I think a TLS students answering questions thread is one of your weaker sources of information and where you're better off just contacting financial aid. People tend to be fairly tight-lipped about their financial aid packages; though I know very detailed sets of grades & job outcomes for my peers, I know absolutely nothing about anybody's financial aid packages. I'm not even aware of which friends receive aid. The only insight you might gain here is to ask for anecdotes ("has anyone ever done X, what happened"), but questions like how do they take X into account are best just asked directly.

acrossthelake wrote:Harvard financial aid is really one of those areas where I think a TLS students answering questions thread is one of your weaker sources of information and where you're better off just contacting financial aid. People tend to be fairly tight-lipped about their financial aid packages; though I know very detailed sets of grades & job outcomes for my peers, I know absolutely nothing about anybody's financial aid packages. I'm not even aware of which friends receive aid. The only insight you might gain here is to ask for anecdotes ("has anyone ever done X, what happened"), but questions like how do they take X into account are best just asked directly.

Pretty much everything you say is credited.

Yup. Also, if you don't want to contact a finaid person (who will literally just copy and paste a section from the fin aid website to answer your question) the fin aid website is pretty robust with a ton of examples for basic situations. I've only ever used the website and I get within a few hundred dollars of my award amount.

acrossthelake wrote:Harvard financial aid is really one of those areas where I think a TLS students answering questions thread is one of your weaker sources of information and where you're better off just contacting financial aid. People tend to be fairly tight-lipped about their financial aid packages; though I know very detailed sets of grades & job outcomes for my peers, I know absolutely nothing about anybody's financial aid packages. I'm not even aware of which friends receive aid. The only insight you might gain here is to ask for anecdotes ("has anyone ever done X, what happened"), but questions like how do they take X into account are best just asked directly.

Pretty much everything you say is credited.

Yup. Also, if you don't want to contact a finaid person (who will literally just copy and paste a section from the fin aid website to answer your question) the fin aid website is pretty robust with a ton of examples for basic situations. I've only ever used the website and I get within a few hundred dollars of my award amount.

Yep. It's pretty incredibly unhelpful. And it doesn't get better when you're a student. You can ask some pretty important questions and just get copy pasted responses off the website (and no responses to your follow up).

acrossthelake wrote:Harvard financial aid is really one of those areas where I think a TLS students answering questions thread is one of your weaker sources of information and where you're better off just contacting financial aid. People tend to be fairly tight-lipped about their financial aid packages; though I know very detailed sets of grades & job outcomes for my peers, I know absolutely nothing about anybody's financial aid packages. I'm not even aware of which friends receive aid. The only insight you might gain here is to ask for anecdotes ("has anyone ever done X, what happened"), but questions like how do they take X into account are best just asked directly.

Pretty much everything you say is credited.

Yup. Also, if you don't want to contact a finaid person (who will literally just copy and paste a section from the fin aid website to answer your question) the fin aid website is pretty robust with a ton of examples for basic situations. I've only ever used the website and I get within a few hundred dollars of my award amount.

Yep. It's pretty incredibly unhelpful. And it doesn't get better when you're a student. You can ask some pretty important questions and just get copy pasted responses off the website (and no responses to your follow up).

MissouriMisery wrote:Hello! I have a couple of questions about realistic expectations for my need-based aid.

I have been working for 6 years since undergrad making about 30k per year, almost done paying off UG debt and my cheap car. I have about 5K in the bank. My parents both make decent money (combined just over 6 figures). They won't be contributing any money. I have no other assets Approximately how much need-based aid should I be expecting?

Also, are need-based grants reassessed each year or all at once? I am getting married in the middle of 1L year and am concerned that might throw things off. My spouse will have considerably more assets than I.

Thanks in advance for your responses

To answer your qualitative questions: actual parental contribution is irrelevant, it's potential that counts. Need based grants are reassessed each year (that way those of us with firm aspirations aren't living on $40k and still getting the same grants as the public interest fellows living on $4k).

Right, it's not actual contribution that matters. Also, depending on how old you are, your parents' income might not count. I think they start phasing out the expected parent contribution beginning at 28.

ph14 wrote:Someone just make a HLS financial aid thread and leave this one for substantive questions.

Speaking of financial aid, does anyone know if my limited edition autographed copy of Face/Off counts as an asset?

Yes. There is an entire section of the financial aid site dedicated explicitly to limited edition autographed copies of Face/Off. It also includes a calculator to figure out, based on the quality, size, and color of the autograph, how much it will increase your assets. They may also count goodwill, which you'll have to amortize over the three years you are here. However, if you mark-to-market the value of the asset, you may be able to take losses on paper without actually taking them in real life. Caveat: You may become Enron if you try this.

Frozen98 wrote:on the same note as research assistants, what jobs can you get term-time? I know there's some rule barring 1Ls from working 20+hours/week but afterward can you be a legal assistant somewhere and just never go to class, study off outlines, etc?

I've heard people describe 2L and 3L years as vacations but is it really as easy as sipping pina coladas in Europe Sept-Dec and just flying back for the exam?

Some professors are more prickly about attendance than others. I do have friends who have disappeared mid-semester for over a month at a time, though I don't know anyone personally who left for the entirety of the semester to fly back for exams. I met an attorney during EIP who did this, but that was many years ago. Also, the ability to just read an outline at the end and be fine tends to vary by student.

Frozen98 wrote:on the same note as research assistants, what jobs can you get term-time? I know there's some rule barring 1Ls from working 20+hours/week but afterward can you be a legal assistant somewhere and just never go to class, study off outlines, etc?

I've heard people describe 2L and 3L years as vacations but is it really as easy as sipping pina coladas in Europe Sept-Dec and just flying back for the exam?

Some professors are more prickly about attendance than others. I do have friends who have disappeared mid-semester for over a month at a time, though I don't know anyone personally who left for the entirety of the semester to fly back for exams. I met an attorney during EIP who did this, but that was many years ago. Also, the ability to just read an outline at the end and be fine tends to vary by student.

There is someone in one of my classes that i'm pretty sure just stopped showing up like 1/3 of the way through the semester. That's definitely an anomaly, though. Most people, even 3Ls, have reasonably good class attendance.

To each his/her own, I guess, but the choice to never go to class seems stupid to me, even if someone can hypothetically ace the exam.

My approach is to take a combination of classes that will be useful to my career and/or that have interesting topics and engaging professors. Since I'm going into horrific debt to spend 3 years at HLS I might as well take advantage of as many opportunities as I can here, including getting as much as I can out of the two years that I have free reign to design my own schedule. I'd say that if you're not engaged enough in the class to want to attend most of the time, you're picking the wrong classes. If you're bored out of your mind by classes you feel like you "should" take, keep in mind you'll probably study those topics for the bar anyway and can teach yourself whatever substantive law you need to know in your job.

despina wrote:To each his/her own, I guess, but the choice to never go to class seems stupid to me, even if someone can hypothetically ace the exam.

My approach is to take a combination of classes that will be useful to my career and/or that have interesting topics and engaging professors. Since I'm going into horrific debt to spend 3 years at HLS I might as well take advantage of as many opportunities as I can here, including getting as much as I can out of the two years that I have free reign to design my own schedule. I'd say that if you're not engaged enough in the class to want to attend most of the time, you're picking the wrong classes. If you're bored out of your mind by classes you feel like you "should" take, keep in mind you'll probably study those topics for the bar anyway and can teach yourself whatever substantive law you need to know in your job.

Another viewpoint, though, is that you're going into horrific debt to receive a law degree from HLS and the job opportunities that go with it. Whether you actually find the other offerings(like class) enticing will probably vary dramatically depending on the individual and for those who don't find the way law classes are taught all that engaging, skipping is completely logical.

Thinking more and more about the HBS MBA and how much more useful it would be than the JD for my current background. Anyone here doing a combined degree? I gather that I could get to LS and apply during my 1L year? I suppose I need to sit for the gmat and prep my apps before I attend as school will be very hectic / busy.